I'm interested in my own country's history in WWII and the not so heroic actions of some of our brave soldiers. I've heard that Japanese taken as prisoners were commonly killed, and that on the Kokoda track Australian soldiers forced locals to assist them. As far as I can tell there is a bit of a dearth of information on this topic though. Can any of you wonderfully knowledgeable people help me out?
In some of his works Australian historian Peter Brune has discussed some Australian war crimes. He summed it up as an unofficial policy to not take POWs after the Australian armies had come across atrocities committed in New Guinea during the Kokoda Campaign. This consisted of such things as captured Australians being used for bayonet practice. He makes the claim that the Australian High Command basically turned a blind eye to this sort of tit for tat behaviour. It's not something that anyone seems to go into a lot of depth in though.
I don't know if this constitutes as a war crime but I understand Australian servicemen ran away/abandoned their posts when Darwin was bombed.